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This is a debut novel for book critic Lev Grossman. He is able to combine two of his own interests to provide the fascinating plot for CODEX. A decade ago, he spent time working in the Beinecke, a library specialising in rare books and manuscripts, so his descriptions of the mediaeval to modern volumes with which his protagonist, Edward Wozny, becomes involved are authentic. The second theme of CODEX is computer gaming and again the thread grew from personal experience as he worked in an office where his colleagues were obsessed with computer games. Edward is a New York investment banker. He is on a brief vacation prior to leaving for an exchange with the London office of his firm. He has been sent, as a favour from his boss to the New York residence of important clients, an English couple named Went. He is somewhat bemused, on arriving at the rather seedy establishment, to discover he is expected to catalogue a collection of books. Despite it being beneath his perceived dignity to do what amounts to manual labour, he has time on his hands so sets about the task, being instructed to note especially any work by one Gervase of Langford, a 14th century writer. On the day Edward begins work on the cataloguing, a friend gives him a disk containing a copy of a computer game known to some people as Momus. Edward half-heartedly begins playing it but proves a remarkably inept player. Nonetheless, he gradually finds himself becoming addicted to the game which contains strange parallels to the library where he is working. Edward soon becomes obsessed with his search for Gervase and, when attempting to do research on the author, encounters a woman named Margaret who is also engaged in learning about the writer. Soon the two are co-operating in sifting through the Went collection to prove or disprove the existence of the Codex. Time soon ceases to have much meaning for Edward as his values change. For me, the charm of this tale lies in the knowledge imparted concerning the romance of ancient books. Fiction in the 14th century bore a stigma unknown today and Grossman delivers easily digested gobbets of knowledge about genuine as well as fictional works of literature. He has a remarkable ability to summarise subjects to convey accurate information succinctly. The description of the power that computer gaming has over modern youth is very interesting, too, in that it may be seen as a form of literature for the modern age. While CODEX is an entertaining read, a thriller devoid of modern murder yet replete with suspense and a measure of violence, some of its lessons may occupy the reader's mind for some time to come.
Reviewed by Denise Pickles, November 2005
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